For invitations that must not travel far
A Private Event Link Only Your Guests Can Open
The address that stays off the public web: a password gate, careful sharing, and a private page that still counts every reply honestly while the secret holds.
Two kinds of private
Some events are private because they are small: a rehearsal dinner, an elopement announced to two families, a hen party finalising the weekend. Others are private because they are surprises, where the entire plan is one forwarded message away from ruin. Both need the same thing: an invitation link that works perfectly for the invited and exists as little as possible for everyone else.
A password on the event site does most of that work. The page lives behind the link, the link alone opens nothing, and guests enter the password you shared with the invited list before they read a word of the invitation.
How the gate behaves
The link is not the secret
However far the address travels, the page stays shut without the password. Marta and Tom can forward it to a cousin by mistake and the surprise survives the mistake intact.
The password is the secret
It goes to the people you actually invited, in the same message or a private reply. A password pasted into a hundred-person group chat is an announcement wearing security as a costume.
Replies count honestly behind the gate
Private does not mean paper-and-hope. Guests tap the reply button like anyone else, plus-ones stay inside your limits, and names and notes settle onto the guest list as usual. The list belongs to you alone.
Sharing discipline, in the order that works
Hosts who keep a secret tend to follow the same handful of habits:
- Send the link and the password together, to one guest or one trusted small group
- Say plainly not to forward, if the event is a surprise; a short list makes that honest rather than paranoid
- Keep the guest list itself the only record of replies, visible to you and nobody browsing the web
- If the password reaches someone unplanned, decide whether it matters before deciding to rebuild the page
The natural examples
Surprise parties are the obvious case: the whole invitation is a spoiler held in trust, and the gate means the page betrays nothing even when the message is seen over a shoulder. Elopements come next, announcing a date and a place to two families without becoming the internet’s news. Gender reveals, hen weekends and small rehearsal dinners all borrow the same logic: the details are for the invited, and the fact that something is happening may not even be for anyone else.
One quiet helper sits outside the gate: a draft is not visible to guests until you publish it, so the page can be built in pieces while plans are still moving. Publish once the guest list is real, then hand out the password as carefully as the address.
How it works
Locking the page and sharing it properly
Build the invitation as a draft
Create the event in the app or through Jitabi on WhatsApp. While it is unpublished, guests cannot open it at all, which is the right state for a plan still moving.
Turn on the password and choose it
Any published site can be password-protected; the host sets the word and decides who receives it. Keep it something guests can type on a phone without a manual.
Send link and password to the invited list
Message each guest or each trusted group privately. For a surprise, the guest of honour is not in the message, and the wording of your note should assume other eyes.
Watch the list fill, gate intact
Replies land on the guest list exactly as on a public page, so the headcount stays honest while the details stay private. Reminders to non-responders go only to the list you assembled.
Questions
Common questions about private event invitation link
Do guests need the password each time they open the page?
The gate asks for it when they arrive, so share the word in a place guests can find on the night, not in a message buried under forty others. Anyone without it sees nothing, which is the same coin as the privacy you wanted.
Can the guest of honour still be surprised?
That is what the gate is for. Send the invitation only to the invited list, keep the link and password out of mixed chats, and the page can hold every detail of the surprise without existing for the person it is about.
Does a private page look like a normal link to outsiders?
The address appears to lead nowhere without the password, and the page is not published to the wider web for browsers to find. It is a closed room, not a locked door on an empty street.
Will replies still come through properly behind a password?
Yes. Once inside, guests use the same reply flow as anyone: confirm, add plus-ones inside your limits, leave notes, all landing on your live guest list in the usual way.
Can I share with a small trusted group and keep it out of the big chat?
Yes, and that is the recommended pattern: a message to the planning subset with link and password, then those guests invite onward privately, while the page itself never answers to the wider group.
Get Started
Keep the plan in the room that matters
Build the page behind a password, share it like a confidence, and let the guest list count every reply honestly. Start free, publish when ready, and read the sharing notes on the how-it-works page.